


In the Superhero Business

by Aimael



Series: The Time Inbetween [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, Irondad Tony Stark, Michelle Jones and Peter Parker are Complete Messes, Newly established relationship, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aimael/pseuds/Aimael
Summary: It was a Friday in October, and MJ and Peter had been invited to a party. It was Cindy who had invited them, and she had invited them as a couple. And that changed things, as far as MJ was concerned.She snuck a glance at Peter, and their eyes met briefly because he’d done exactly the same thing and tried to look for her expression. He looked pleased, though, and that made something in MJ’s stomach flutter. Unpleasantly. (Not that unpleasantly.)“Sure”, she said to Cindy. “Sounds fun. We’ll come.”Things sort of deteriorate from there.Or:A story about trust, downsides of having super-strength, something approaching love, ER rooms, downsides of getting drunk, and rebuilding.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: The Time Inbetween [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027078
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	In the Superhero Business

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! 
> 
> Okay, so, date nerdery inbound, feel free to skip this paragraph. I’ve really tried researching my timelines here, but the MCU is inconsistent as cr*p, so I’ve had to create my own timeline. For this story, assume Spider-Man: Homecoming took place in fall 2016 (a couple of months after Civil War) and that this is set almost a full year later, which means Peter is 16 in this story. IW has not happened (yet, but would according to this timeline take place in spring 2018) and none of the following stories either. Not sure if anyone cares but me, but since I care a little too much about this kind of consistency, you got the explanation anyway :) 
> 
> BUT! This makes it possible for Peter and Tony to know each other a lot better than they did in Homecoming - the magic year of pre-IW, as some have said :) As such, we can have both Peter/MJ fluff and angst, AND IronDad fluff and angst! Hooray! 
> 
> Content warnings in endnotes! 
> 
> Please enjoy :)

* * *

It was a Friday in October, and MJ and Peter had been invited to a party.

Not a Halloween party, because Cindy Moon, who hosted it, had been a few days late spreading the word, and the Midtown Tech designated slot for  _ Halloween party _ had gone to Flash Thompson, who had been somewhat quicker getting the word out about the  _ awesome party  _ he’d throw the following weekend. As such, Cindy had had to downgrade her party to only a  _ normal  _ party, as well as change weekends, but she had promised too many people she’d throw one to be able to back out altogether.

So, MJ and Peter were invited to a party. A general party. 

And normally, it was people with big houses and a lot of confidence who threw parties - people like Flash Thompson or Liz Allan - and so MJ normally showed up if she felt like it, but didn’t feel the need to tell anyone she wouldn’t come if she decided it was more of a pyjama pants-and-books-evening, rather than punsch bowl-and-music-evening. She figured they didn’t care that much whether she showed up or not, so. 

But now it was Cindy who had invited them, and she had invited them as a  _ couple _ . And that changed things, as far as MJ was concerned.

“Hey, Peter, Michelle?” Cindy had said a little nervously after an AcaDec practice.

Peter had stopped immediately and turned to Cindy with his usual super-polite attention, which would make MJ look like an asshole if she tried to pretend she hadn’t heard (like she’d maybe do if she was alone because honestly, she’d been leading practice for  _ other people _ for  _ one and a half hours _ and was really due for some headphones and alone-time), so she’d stopped too.

“You know the party I’ve been talking about having?”

Peter nodded and his polite attention didn’t waver a bit, which told MJ that he absolutely didn’t know, but figured he’d get away with it because it sounded like Cindy wasn’t finished speaking.

“Well. It’ll be this Friday. My place. And it would be super cool if you guys would come.”

And it was the  _ you guys  _ that made MJ’s mouth suddenly feel dry. As if she and Peter would decide to come, or to do something else, together. As if that was what people assumed. As if  _ she _ could assume that. Maybe she could - they were  _ together _ now, because they’d kissed, loads of times, and they’d walked together to their classes whenever they could since the beginning of the semester, and they usually sat together at lunch (even if it was with Ned too), and he had nervously told her he was Spiderman and she’d said “Duh, I know” with her heartbeat thundering in her ears and an almost even voice even though she’d only been like 67 percent sure, and he’d climbed up on a roof (by  _ scaling the building _ , it had been terrifying) and brought her to an amazing rooftop garden he’d found once on  _ patrol  _ for something she was pretty sure was a date, and he kept looking at her like she was the best thing since votes for women - and maybe she  _ should _ assume they would decide something like this together. She didn’t know. 

She’d snuck a glance at Peter, and their eyes met briefly because  _ of course _ he’d done exactly the same thing and tried to look for her expression. Honestly. They were embarrassing. 

But he looked pleased, and that made something in MJ’s stomach flutter. Unpleasantly. (Not that unpleasantly.) 

“Sure”, she’d said to Cindy. “Sounds fun. We’ll come.”

And Peter had looked even more pleased, so apparently she’d remembered correctly that he didn’t have plans for the weekend, and read him correctly when she 1) thought he wanted to go and 2) thought he wanted to go  _ together _ and 3) thought he liked when she said  _ we _ like that.

So that was cool.

Only problem was that once Friday came, it was most decidedly a pyjama-pants-and-books evening, and not a punch bowl-and-music evening. She did  _ not _ feel like going to a cramped apartment (because she knew where Cindy lived and Google Maps said it was an apartment block, not houses) full of drunk or semi-drunk classmates and loud music. She wanted a cup of tea, music, and  _ Half of a Yellow Sun _ , because she’d only read the first few chapters but it was really good so far. Or she wanted to lay in Peter’s sofa at his and May’s, watch something stupid on the TV and just… talk, with their feet in each other’s laps. 

But she’d promised Cindy they’d come.

And while it maybe wasn’t  _ that  _ important, Cindy was nice. And Peter was nice. And he’d wanted her to go with him. And she’d said yes for both of them, so. That was that. 

Gritting her teeth, she compromised by putting on leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with a print that said  _ NO. _ in big, black letters, and went anyway. 

Her foul mood improved somewhat when she knocked on the door to Cindy Moon’s apartment and it was by luck opened by Peter, and his face lit up in a blinding smile. “MJ! Hi! I missed you!”

“We literally just saw each other”, MJ felt the need to point out, but felt the corner of her mouth lift a little. “It’s not possible for you to have missed me.”

“School was  _ hours _ ago”, Peter argued good-naturedly, and held her company in the hallway while she took off her coat and army boots. From inside the apartment, someone was laughing their ass off, and vague sounds of some kind of music could be heard from a shitty speaker. MJ found she didn’t mind either of the sounds as much as she thought she would. “I can too have missed you.”

She melted. “Fine.” She kissed him. Said  _ I missed you too _ without having to say it. Peter was good, that way, he usually understood her.

Then she kissed him again, just to feel his lips move against hers. Then again, more thoroughly. 

“Oh my god, you guys.” Jason Ionello stood in the doorway to the kitchen with a plastic cup in one hand, smirking at them as they broke apart. “Get a room.”

“What are you, seven?” MJ asked blankly. 

“Hi Michelle I’m so glad you could make it!” Cindy said in one breath with a huge smile on her face from behind Jason, and MJ’s grumpiness was soothed even further. Huh. 

Peter must have noticed, because he reached for her hand and squeezed it once. “So am I”, he said, and it was simultaneously the most dorky, cheesy thing she’d ever heard and really, really sweet. She compromised again and rolled her eyes  _ and  _ squeezed his hand back.

“Mi- _ chelle _ !” A very, very drunk Sally Avril almost skipped out into the hallway, grabbed her hand and began dragging her into the kitchen with the help of Cindy. “You need a drink, girl! Come, come on, Cindy made punsch!” 

“You shouldn’t just gender people unnecessarily”, MJ said, as a force of habit, but allowed herself to be dragged off. Drunk Sally was… apparently a lot more upbeat than not-drunk Sally. Interesting. 

She saw Peter getting dragged into - back into? - some sort of teasing conversation by Jason and Abe Brown before she left the hallway, and grinned to herself at his simultaneously very embarrassed and very proud expression. So they  _ were _ talking about her. Them. Whatever.

Well. Let them. 

Someone threw a plastic cup into her hand, and she lifted it to her lips and drank - sweet, overly so, but definitely alcoholic. She coughed once, waved off Cindy’s amused but good natured apologies, and felt her body start to sway a little to the new song that just came on.

Life, suddenly, felt surprisingly good.

It also turned out that having an actual boyfriend suddenly made her a lot cooler than she’d been last semester. MJ wasn’t used to being listened to - she was usually the one who listened, not the other way around - and she’d never sought the attention. Not since third grade or so, at least. But it  _ was  _ kind of fun, she had to admit, for people to want to know where they went on their dates; whether she’d seen Peter without his shirt because he was  _ ripped  _ underneath those dorky t-shirts, Cindy had seen it in gym class once; how far they’d  _ you know, gone _ ; whether he  _ actually  _ had a Stark internship or not; whether he mustn’t be either like a  _ genius  _ or Tony Stark’s secret son for that to be true. Things like that. It was, of course, none of their business, and MJ kept most details to herself. But nevertheless, it was surprisingly fun to be asked, and she couldn’t be blamed if she let one or two things slip, could she? 

And if Cindy and Betty eyed Peter’s midsection for the rest of the party, she really couldn’t be blamed. Cindy  _ had _ seen something during gym class.

Peter looked slightly confused when they all broke down into giggles when he entered the kitchen in search of more punsch, but MJ couldn’t help shooting him a wide grin and a wink and that, in turn, made him blush but look incredibly pleased in a way which made her breath catch in her throat - like she had known it would.

It wasn’t all about her and Peter, though - there was also dancing, an impromptu AcaDec practice session mostly consisting of Ned Leeds and Charles Murphy excitedly shouting random questions to each other and everyone else joining in shouting any answer they felt might be correct (or completely wrong but funny), and a lot of singing along to bad music. 

Michelle felt a little bit sorry for the neighbors and Cindy’s parents, but hey, Cindy must have known what she was doing. 

There was also quite a bit of drinking. Some people had brought whatever they could scrounge up, but many relied mostly on Cindy’s punsch - less and less recognisable as the evening went on and more and more people found random bottles of soda, spirits or lemonade to pour in to create  _ more.  _ It wasn’t very good, but without having planned it, MJ found she’d had three and a half glasses by the time she and Peter eventually ended up on the same couch. She grudgingly had to admit that she’d had a good time - a really good time, actually - but the music on the shitty speaker was getting increasingly loud, people were getting drunker a lot more quickly than she was, and she was tired. No wonder she was getting a headache. She  _ did  _ realize she was only going to become sleepy if she sat down, but darnit, she didn’t have to be smart  _ all _ the time, and the couch was really comfortable. 

Peter wouldn’t let her sleep, though.

“...and I honestly thought the lady would  _ explode _ , she was so angry, but Mr Delmar just said ‘ma’am it’s the rules’ and pointed at the little sign behind the counter and I could  _ see _ the lady being all like ‘but that doesn’t apply to me because I’m fancy and shit’ - sorry, uh,  _ stuff _ \- and someone behind me said ‘yeah lady that sounds about right’ and by then she kinda  _ had _ to put it out because of peer pressure, you know, but she did it really poorly so it just started to smoke even worse, and she looked at it and then at Mr Delmar and shrugged in a  _ what can you do  _ kinda way, and the girl with the asthma just coughed even  _ more  _ and I felt so sorry for her, because I remember that feeling, right, from when I used to have asthma? And it really  _ sucks _ , honestly -”

“Dude”, she said, a bit amused despite her beginning exhaustion. “Are you actually drunk?”

Peter scoffed. “No!” Then his expression changed into confusion. “No. No? I should burn through it faster than I drink it - Tony didn’t think I’d be able to drink enough, due to my - my metabolism, y’know? Did I ever tell you? It’s off the charts, apparently, which is mostly a pain in the  _ butt _ , because it mostly means I’m a bit hungry  _ all  _ the  _ time  _ -”

“Dude”, MJ said again. “Chill. Or at least don’t speak so loud.” Accidentally revealing your secret identity to a bunch of drunk high schoolers seemed like something off the top three of a Worst Case Scenario-list. 

“Yeah, okay”, Peter said, not lowering his voice in the slightest.

MJ sighed. Yup. There it was. Proof. “You’re drunk. Trust me.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I trust you!” Peter said quickly. “Of course I do!” He cuddled up closer to her, hesitated for a brief second, and then surprisingly smoothly put an arm on the backrest behind her, smiling with something mischievous in his eyes. As if he’d done something she should laugh at.

And. It wasn’t that he was lying. 

He  _ did _ trust her. And he apparently felt the need to say so several times.

But he still thought she was  _ wrong _ . And then just... smoothed it over, without talking to her about it - without giving her the chance to defend her argument. As if her reasoning didn’t matter. As if it didn’t matter what she thought. And she  _ hated  _ when people did that - and they did, a  _ lot, _ because she was young. Black. Female. Not worthy to take note of.

Normally, she would have said something. Something biting. Something to express how totally not okay that was. Because she thought he  _ knew _ . But apparently not.

She was  _ not _ going to start now, though. She was tipsy, he was drunk, and it was a  _ party _ all around them. Clearly a conversation for tomorrow.

“Yeah”, she said with growing irritation she couldn’t quite push down. “Okay, Romeo. I think I’ll head home. See you around.”

“Wha- no!” Peter sat up straighter when she rose, looking disbelievingly at her. “Don’t go, MJ?”

She scoffed. “It’s late. I’m tired. Not interested in being considered a liar - you know, the usual.”

Oops.

Peter looked appalled. “I’ve never said - did I say - what?”

Frustrated, MJ shook her head - because he  _ hadn’t _ , no, but he also kind of  _ had _ , and this was really not the time. She gave a stiff smile, but dropped it immediately. It felt insincere. “You know what? Never mind. Dance. Drink more punsch. Gossip with Abe and Jason. If it’s still important tomorrow, we’ll talk then. Catch you later.”

And with that, she began to walk away, mentally calculating the hour, the risk of walking home as opposed to the cost of a cab and missing out on sobering up through the walk before she got home, and wondered where her boots might have ended up. 

“MJ!” 

And of  _ course  _ he ran after her. 

“MJ, Em, what did I - MJ, stay -”

She ignored him. She’d only make it worse - and honestly, he  _ should _ be able to have fun on a Friday evening even if  _ she  _ was in a bad mood. That part had been a hundred percent sincere. Or at least ninety-five percent sincere. Something like that. No reason to make her growing headache and tiredness spoil his evening too - she’d explain in the morning, and he’d apologize, he’d think before he did it again, and it would all be fine. Peter was great that way. If she could just  _ get home _ . 

“Em - Em no, MJ please, what did I say-”

He grabbed her wrist with a pleading look on his face, and yanked her back from the hallway, towards the doorway to the living room.

And something  _ snapped. _

For a second, their eyes met, and MJ felt nothing as she saw the growing horror in Peter’s eyes. 

Then she felt the pain. 

She heard herself draw a sharp breath, and then say: “Ow.” 

Peter let go of her wrist as if burned.

Embarrassingly enough, she felt her eyes water, and then spill over. “Ow”, she said again, because  _ Jesus Christ _ now it hurt, and she stumbled and caught herself on the wall when black spots began to dance before her eyes. 

Sounding as if he came from very far away, she heard Peter whisper: “Oh my god, MJ.” She felt a trembling hand on her shoulder and jerked in surprise -  _ wasn’t he very far away just now? When had she closed her eyes?  _ \- and the hand disappeared again. So did his voice.

“Michelle? You okay?” she vaguely heard Sally say from the other side of the hallway. 

“I - I think I need to go to the hospital”, her own voice said, and then she was caught up in blurry colours and distorted sounds and a vague ringing in her ears and feeling her pulse in her very, very broken wrist, and it was honestly kind of hard to focus for a while.

She didn’t feel like anyone could blame her.

The only constants through the next half-hour, as she exited the apartment, entered the cab someone apparently had called, and then exited the cab outside of the hospital, was Peter’s steady presence to her left and the throbbing in her right wrist.

At one point, she had the realization that oh,  _ this _ must have been what Peter had meant about super strength not being all that great, really. 

Then she just concentrated on breathing.

* * *

The waiting room of the ER was surprisingly loud for the late hour - but then again, people getting into trouble late Friday evenings wasn’t really that surprising, Peter supposed. Fridays and Saturdays were his busiest patrol days of the week. 

The noise grated on his nerves, though, and he found himself twisting his free hand in the sleeve of his sweater, bumping his leg up and down, almost shaking with the effort of remaining seated instead of jumping up and beginning to pace. 

His other hand was occupied by MJ, who held it in a tight grip - pale and with sweat beads on her forehead, but for all other intents and purposes, entirely calm. She held her right hand and wrist pressed loosely against her chest. Peter was getting a lot better at reading MJ, even her almost expressionless faces, but he hadn’t a clue what she was thinking.

Maybe that had something to do with the fact that he wasn’t quite able to look her in the eye, just now.

The noise bothered her too though, he could tell. She winced sometimes, when someone slammed a door, or shouted, or cried too loudly. 

He wished he could make them stop.

He wished he could sober up, so the room didn’t spin quite so much - so he didn’t feel faintly ill every time MJ made a sound - because she did, sometimes, a hiss of pain when she climbed out of the cab, a small grunt when she sat down on the hard plastic chair in the waiting room, a snort as a comment to someone saying something stupid behind her. He wished he could have smiled back at her then, made it another of their little inside jokes when they laughed at people around them being  _ disaster humans, just like them _ . 

He looked away, instead.

Held her hand, because she seemed to want him to.

He didn’t talk, though, and she didn’t either.

Eventually -  _ finally _ \- someone came to get her. 

Her grip on his hand didn’t loosen, so he followed - trying to give her what support he might - and entered the small examination room with her.

The nurse, a very short, black-haired woman -  _ Veronica _ , her name tag said - looked at the wrist, concluded that yes, that was a fracture, and had started to explain the next steps of the evening, when she eventually stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. She looked down at the wrist again, frowned slightly. 

Then she looked up and smiled kindly at MJ. She had dimples in her rounded cheeks. “Why don’t we send your boyfriend out to get you some coffee or tea, sweetheart?”

“It’s okay”, said MJ. Peter didn’t know whether it was the  _ sweetheart _ part, or the part where the nurse was trying to decide for her what she needed that was objectionable, but he could hear in her voice that it was  _ something _ .

“It would do you good, I think.” 

Realizing MJ most likely  _ would _ need something to drink that wasn’t alcoholic, Peter offered hoarsely: “I could get you a cappuccino?” She liked cappuccinos. He’d give her a mountain of cappuccinos if she wanted to. Or a lake. That made more sense.

Damn it all to hell. He shook his head, tried to clear it. Wished for about the fiftieth time that Tony had been right and that he couldn’t get drunk.

Had he been sober, Peter figured, it was likely  _ none _ of it would have happened.

MJ sighed. “Yeah, okay. Sure. Double shots. Thanks.”

Peter wanted to sound normal, but the stiff mask his face had turned into hadn’t budged yet and apparently, it also affected his vocal chords, because he couldn’t seem to say anything to that. He  _ wanted  _ to say  _ sure _ or  _ as always _ or  _ love you  _ ( _ love you? damn it Parker, where did that come from _ ), but in the end he just nodded and stepped out in the corridor, carefully closing the door behind him.

He had taken a few steps down the hall, trying to remember whether he saw a coffee machine in the hall when they entered or whether he should just pop out to find a Starbucks or something which was open this late because honestly who liked machine coffee anyway, or whether that would take too long and whether his priority should be  _ get good coffee for MJ  _ or  _ get back to MJ as soon as he could _ , when he heard the nurse again.

He wasn’t meant to hear. She didn’t speak to him, for starters. 

Secondly, the only reason he even could hear it at all was due to his freakishly good hearing - the kind of hearing that allowed him to hear the rustling of papers behind the check in desk a floor down, the leaking tap in one of the restrooms further down the hall, someone laughing softly at someone else’s joke in a room three doors down. He was normally pretty decent at tuning most of it out. 

Because thirdly, it was  _ rude  _ to eavesdrop. 

But someone had said his name, and he listened automatically, slowing his steps.

“How long have you and Peter been together, Michelle?”

“Does it matter?”

A brief silence and the creaking of Veronica’s chair.

“Did you feel safe with him, here in the room?”

MJ’s curtest tone said: “Sure.”

Pause.

“We can go somewhere else before he comes back, it would be no trouble.”

Peter stopped walking altogether.

“Why?” MJ sounded suspicious.

“Sweetie”, Veronica’s voice said kindly, “I couldn’t help but notice. Those bruises, right there… that looks like fingerprints to me. Don’t they look that way to you?”

He  _ knew  _ he should continue down the hall. Knew he shouldn’t hear, shouldn’t listen, he had no  _ right _ , MJ should feed his intestines to the crocodile at the zoo they had admired so much this summer for listening in on a  _ very private conversation -  _ but stiffly, he shuffled over to one wall - a dirty, yellow color which probably had been supposed to look comforting and happy, once - and leaned his head back against it. 

_ Fingerprints _ . 

Reflexively, he closed his fist hard. Then let it go.

“Now that you mention it”, MJ said in what seemed very much like her normal voice (but shouldn’t be, right, shouldn’t she be freaking out too?), “they kind of do. Weird.”

“My guess is that it’s not  _ that  _ weird”, Veronica said, still in the mild voice she probably reserved for patients with severe trauma. Mugged people who had been threatened with weapons. People who had been in accidents with people who died. Girlfriends who had boyfriends who broke their wrists. Those sort of people. 

It was silent for a moment. Peter imagined the nurse taking MJ’s hand.

“Michelle”, Veronica said softly, when MJ apparently didn’t volunteer any more information. “How was your wrist broken?”

He imagined her tearing up at that - MJ almost  _ never _ cried, but if she couldn’t do it now, then when the hell could she - and imagined her preparing herself to say  _ You’re right, it was my boyfriend, and yeah let’s go somewhere else  _ or  _ I just don’t get why he’d do such a thing, he’s never done it before _ in that same confused, betrayed voice he’d heard women in TV series use when they talked about their boyfriends or husbands who hurt them. 

“I fell off my bike”, MJ said instead, sounding completely unfazed, and Peter drew a shuddering breath, not even realizing until now he’d been holding it. “I wore a helmet and gloves and everything because I’m not  _ stupid _ , but I fell wrong. Braced with my wrist from a weird angle, I guess. Hurt like shit.”

“Michelle…”

“Pete?”

Peter’s head snapped up. “Mister… Mister Stark?” He winced. He hadn’t called Tony Mister Stark for months - had been asked, repeatedly, to use his first name after the whole debacle with Scorpion.  _ Setback. Shit.  _ Okay, he’d fix it later. Apologize or something.

“You’re alright.” 

It wasn’t a question, but it was said with such relief that Peter felt he needed to confirm it, even though  _ alright _ was  _ very _ far from what Peter felt at the moment. “Y-yeah, I’m - I’m fine.”

Tony - who wore the very odd combination of dress pants, polished shoes and an oversized hoodie, probably put on in all haste to hide the shirt and tie underneath which peeked up at his throat - looked sceptical. “U-huh. Then why are you here?”

MJ chose that moment to raise her voice somewhat and ask Veronica: “Are you calling me a liar?”

Peter winced. Blinked twice, hard.  _ Focus.  _ “Why am - Tony, what are  _ you  _ doing here?”

“Karen told FRIDAY who told me you called a cab to go to the hospital - safety precautions, et cetera et cetera, you know me. And then  _ you _ didn’t pick up your phone.” Tony sounded calm enough, but Peter knew him well enough to hear the steel behind the words.

Belatedly, Peter realized his phone must still be on the coffee table in the living room back at the party, and grimaced. “Sorry.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know, you always are.” Then he sighed. Shook his head. “Don’t - kid, you know better.”

He didn’t say  _ I worry about you _ , but the pleading note in his voice said it for him. 

Peter used to think that was nice. Tony Stark,  _ Iron Man _ , as a mentor, someone who  _ cared _ . He’d started feeling a bit torn about it recently, though - that, too, as a result of the debacle with Scorpion - because while having someone other than May worry about him was  _ fantastic  _ in theory, it also came with a lot of guilt for being the, well, cause of said worry.

“Yeah”, Peter whispered. He didn’t say  _ Sorry _ again, because he remembered to press his lips tightly together to stop himself.

Tony nodded once. Then he looked around, grabbed his elbow and dragged him over to a bench in hard, red plastic a little bit down a side corridor, before Peter could think to stop him. Being further away from MJ’s room was probably a good thing, though. It was likely to be Tony’s wish to get away from the heads that were beginning to turn towards them (and a first whisper of  _ Is that Tony Stark? _ which was always followed by more of the same, a lot of staring and, if they were unlucky, autograph signing sessions, in Peter’s experience), but it was good, all the same.

After having given Peter a more thorough check - turning his head to check for blood or bumps or bruises, searching for bloodstains on his clothes, looking him carefully over from top to bottom - without having found anything amiss, Tony looked strangely at him. “No offense, kid, but you look way too uninjured to merit coming all this way for. What’s going on?”

Peter shook his head again. Closed his eyes. Remembered to open them again.  _ Wished he was sober _ . “Sorry. Erhm. I’m not - I’m not hurt. Honestly.” 

Tony frowned. “You smell like shit. No, wait, correction - you smell like cheap beer. Have you been drinking?” 

“Yeah”, Peter whispered. 

He hadn’t been ashamed of Tony finding that out before. He was now.

The frown deepened. “Okay. Sure. That’s not why you’re here either, though. You haven’t had enough of it for that.”

Peter looked down on his hands. Fiddled with the edge of his jacket sleeve. “It’s MJ.” His throat constricted, and any further explanation was effectively stopped. 

“Shit”, Tony mumbled. “Okay, kid, what’s the matter with her?” 

Peter took a deep breath and braced himself. He felt ill. “I... broke her wrist.”

He didn’t dare look up.

After a  _ too long _ pause, Tony said: “Okay. What happened?”

“Stop saying  _ okay _ ”, Peter snapped without having planned to. “It’s  _ not _ . It’s  _ not _ okay.”

Tony drew a sharp breath, but instead of retorting exhaled slowly. “Fine. Yeah. It’s not okay. Will you tell me what happened?”

Peter cleared his throat. Did it again. His voice was still hoarse when he spoke. “I, uhm. We - we fought? Maybe? She was angry - no, not  _ angry _ , but she was, uhm, I said something stupid, maybe, I dunno, and then she said she wanted to go home and that we’d speak tomorrow instead. And I ran after her and tried to tell her to stay, and I just…”

His hand balled into a fist again, without thinking. Remembered the feel of something hard  _ snapping _ underneath his fingers. Felt ill. “I grabbed her wrist and… I pulled too hard. Didn’t think.” He blinked, fast, tried to get the burning behind his eyes to go away. “I  _ always  _ think, Mister Stark.  _ Always _ . I haven’t broken anything in  _ forever _ .”

“Let me see if I got this right.” Tony shifted beside him, and Peter could tell he wanted him to look at him. Peter kept his eyes on his hands. “You got drunk at a party.”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t think about your super strength.”

Peter winced. “Yeah.” 

“And accidentally broke your girlfriend’s arm.”

Feeling more than a little pathetic, the burning behind his eyes turned into tears he angrily wiped off from his cheeks with a sleeve before they could fall. “Yeah.”

Tony sighed. “You have the worst luck, you know that, kid?”

“ _ I’ve  _ got the worst luck?” Peter said with a sidelong glance at Tony.

“Yeah, yeah okay. Point taken.” With just a hint of awkwardness, Tony first put his hand on Peter’s back, and then seemingly changed his mind and put the entire arm around his shoulders. It felt somewhat stiff, but comforting. Nice. Very nice. “Well, shit. Talk about the return of the broken door knobs of your Spidery youth, huh? When was the last time you, uhm, forgot your strength?”

Peter sniffled. “Uhm. I dunno. Long time ago. Broke the lock to Ned’s bike because he said something funny while I held it in my hands and it made me, y’know, laugh and kind of jerk and I pulled too hard, so. That was, uhm, April, maybe?” 

He’d felt bad about it, but Ned had just said that it was  _ awesome  _ and that they should try exploring how much he could lift, or pull, or break if he intended to, not did it by accident. Then they’d spent an entire week after school sneaking into an old abandoned warehouse and experimented. 

“Okay. Okay.” 

They were silent for a while. The clock on the wall in the main hallway  _ tick-tock _ ed. Nurses discussed cases while hasting between examination rooms or from the ER waiting room. Someone, somewhere, cried. 

“Where is MJ now?” Tony asked eventually.

Peter wiped his eyes again and sighed. “Uhm, in an examination room.”

“You left her  _ alone _ ?”

That hurt. “No, of course not. She’s with a nurse. And I - I dunno. I was gonna get her coffee.” With a start, he realized he had been gone from the room too long. “I should - probably go do that.” He didn’t move.

“Kid, did she ask you for coffee?” Tony sounded exasperated.

“Not really.”

“Then get  _ back  _ to her. You do want to support her, don’t you?”

“She doesn’t  _ want  _ me there”, burst out of Peter before he could think better of it, and he looked up towards Tony even though the tears hadn’t stopped running, his nose was probably red and he must look  _ pathetic _ , wanting  _ something  _ but not quite knowing what. “She won’t want to be with me anymore! She  _ shouldn’t _ ! That’s like, the first rule of feminism - don’t stay with a boyfriend who hurts you, right? Get out as soon as you can, if he hits you once he’s gonna do it again - and I’ve  _ heard _ MJ talk about these things, like rant about really toxic romantic relationships in movies and stuff and there’s this lady who works in the store next to her place who always shows up with bruises and everyone  _ knows _ but no one  _ does  _ anything but MJ who tries to talk to her - and and she’s  _ right _ \- and MJ isn’t on the first level, she’s on a whole other level, Mister Stark, she’s so - so strong, she  _ knows better _ and all I can do is to say I’m  _ sorry _ but I can’t say it won’t happen again because I  _ can’t promise that!  _ I don’t  _ know  _ that!”

Peter found himself standing with one hand braced on the wall and one hand pulling his own hair,  _ hard _ . Turned away, because whatever was on Tony’s face right now, he didn’t want to see it. 

_ Get a grip, Parker _ . 

Took a breath. Slowly released his fingers, one by one. Watched in a sort of detached fascination as loose hairs fell from his hand to the floor. Took a steadying breath.

“So, uhm, she’s probably going to want to break up with me.” He drew his sleeve under his nose again. “Which, y’know. Is fine. But…”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say  _ I just don’t want her to do it tonight _ or  _ I wish she didn’t have to _ or  _ I don’t want to go back in there _ , because he thought he might start crying again and he had  _ no right _ because MJ was the one who was hurt, not he, but the heavy lump in his chest apparently didn’t care about that.

He closed his eyes. Opened them and willed them to stay dry, before he turned around and faced Tony, lifting his chin defensively.

Tony mostly looked… sad. There was pity, but not as much as Peter had feared, and he felt his shoulders relax minutely. 

“Did you two talk? At all?” Tony’s voice was softer than Peter maybe ever had heard it.

“Not really.”

“She hasn’t said anything to you like… what you just said to me?”

Peter had begun shaking his head in frustration before Tony had even finished the sentence. “That’s not - she shouldn’t have to. And she’s a good person - a  _ really  _ good person, she wouldn’t just… She’d think it through first, say it kindly. She always does that. She wouldn’t have done it yet, even if she is going to.”

“Pete”, Tony said, “maybe talk to her before you assume what she’s going to say?”

Peter suddenly felt very, very tired. Found himself swaying on his feet. When Tony took his arm and sat him back down on the hard plastic bench, he didn’t resist. “I just… I really like her, Mister Stark”, he whispered.

Tony’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “I know, kid. I know.”

* * *

The first hint of gray light fell through the windows of the hospital corridor when MJ finally was declared d0ne for the night. Her hand and lower arm was plastered, but she hadn’t needed an operation (“a clean break”, the nurse had said with another suspicious glance towards the bruises, growing more and more prominent as the night progressed), so that was lucky, she guessed.

Peter hadn’t come back to the examination room. 

She wondered whether he’d guessed before she had that the nurse just wanted him gone so that she could interrogate MJ. Possibly, but not necessarily.

She wondered whether he’d stayed away because he was feeling too guilty about her arm, or too afraid she would blame him, to even talk to her. Considering 1) the wide stares in the cab ride over, 2) the awkward silence in the ER and 3) the way he’d bolted at the first opportunity to get out of the room, she thought it probable.

She wondered whether she  _ should _ blame him for what happened. She didn’t, not now. It had been very clear the entire time that it had been a mistake, a freak accident. She was maybe going to give him a hard no on hanging out with him if he drank alcohol, though, because she was  _ not _ keen on a repeat performance of that specific type of mistake. 

Yes, that seemed a reasonable compromise.

With something twisting in her guts, she wondered whether they could get over this without having to go through a highly emotional breakup which hurt everyone involved. Considering 1) that she’d already forgiven him, and her own stubbornness, on one hand, but 2) on the other hand, Peter’s guilt complex the size of a smaller state, and 3) to complicate it even further, her own lack of sleep and general insensitivity when she was tired and annoyed, she gave it a fifty-fifty chance.

Not… catastrophic odds. 

Not great ones either.

If she could postpone any kind of talk until she’d been allowed to sleep (god, she wanted to sleep), she was quite sure the odds would improve.

Stifling a yawn, she stepped into the waiting room and looked around for Peter. He couldn’t have gone home, not without telling her. (Could he?)

Turned out he hadn’t, and he rose immediately from his chair when he saw her coming - paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes, and a paper cup with a plastic lid on in one hand.

When she reached him and stopped just outside of polite conversational distance (because there was something on his face and maybe something heavy in her guts which made her keep more of a distance than she normally would have), he opened his mouth, looked pained, and closed it again, and MJ found she didn’t know what to say either.

The person next to him also rose, and it drew her eyes.

Oh.

She really should have guessed, but she hadn’t. 

“Miss Jones”, Tony Stark said, and she saw his eyes flicker to the huge  _ NO.  _ on her shirt and his mouth twitch a little, before he met her eyes with only neutral kindness left on his face. “Good to see you. Despite the circumstances.”

“Hey, Stark.” MJ made sure she sounded as unimpressed as possible. She always did around him. It wasn’t personal - not really - but  _ someone  _ should remind him he wasn’t the center of anyone’s universe, and since it seemed like the universe wouldn’t help her in that regard, she had dutifully stepped in. She turned to Peter instead. Made sure her voice was even. “Is that my coffee?”

“What?” Peter rasped out, then looked down towards his hand in surprise, as if he had never seen the paper cup in his life before. “Oh. Yes.”

MJ gave him a few seconds longer, but when it seemed he wouldn’t say anything else, she prompted: “Caffeine would be pretty good right now.”

Reddening, Peter handed the cup over - making sure, MJ noted, not to touch her hand at all. 

The coffee was barely lukewarm, but she took a big, grateful gulp of it anyway. 

“Uh, can - can I give you a ride home, Michelle?” Stark said in the tense silence that followed. “I know, I know, you could take the subway, like the strong independent woman you are, but there’s a car just outside and Happy hasn’t seen you in weeks and he misses you terribly -”

“A ride would be… nice”, MJ interrupted awkwardly. “Thanks.” She really  _ was _ tired. 

“Great!” Stark said immediately, then shot Peter a calculating glance. “I’m just gonna pop out and make a quick call, then I can take you both home. You guys go on out, I’ll be right there.”

Peter blanched at that. “Tony -”

“I’ll be right there, kid”, Stark said gently. “A minute. Two, tops.”

Peter didn’t look happy, but he didn’t say anything else as Stark walked away, already looking at his phone. 

MJ took another sip of the coffee. “So”, she said for lack of anything better to say. “Ready to get out of here?”

Peter took a deep breath, then looked her in the eye for the first time since late yesterday evening. “Yeah. Yes. Soon. I just... Are you okay, MJ?”

And wasn’t that just a whole can of worms she wasn’t prepared to unpack at the moment.

She fell back on what Peter called her  _ public personality _ of nonchalance and hard facts, and held up her plastered arm. “All fixed. Good to go. All that jazz.”

Peter shook his head once, sharply, as if he wanted to argue, but didn’t protest. Instead, he took another deliberate breath and said: “Do you want  _ me  _ to take the subway home? Or do you want me to come with you? Drop you off?”

MJ stared, then blinked. She’d known this would happen, she reminded herself. “I’m not afraid of getting in the same car as you, Peter”, she said slowly.

Peter winced. “That’s not - of course not.” 

He looked lost. 

A pang of affection, pity, exasperation, hopelessness.  _ She couldn’t do this now _ .

MJ rubbed her uninjured hand over her face, tried to  _ wake up _ . “Look, can we just go home? My bed misses me. I miss my bed. Caffeine can only do so much for me right now, you get me?” 

“Yeah”, Peter said immediately. “Absolutely. Let’s, uhm. Let’s go, then?”

“Great”, she quipped, and winced at her own dry tone.

They stepped out of the sliding doors side by side, with Peter carefully staying at least a foot away. 

She filed it away for their future conversation.

She also suddenly wished he wouldn’t stay away. That he would take her hand. Or that he would have met her in the waiting room just now by letting her hide in his arms for a bit. Or that he would kiss her, smile his crooked smile that always looked a little sad and say that they could get Chinese and watch something silly and talk later, would that be alright. 

In the sharpening morning light, she could just about make out the reddening around his eyes.  _ He’d been crying, then. _

She hadn’t - well, a little, when they were pulling and prodding and made sure her bones were aligned, because that had  _ hurt _ . But she hadn’t cried because of what had  _ happened _ . She wondered if she should have.

She wondered if it made her terrible person to be glad to see that Peter had.  _ But it meant she’d been reading the situation correctly. It meant her predictions about their odds probably weren’t that far off. _

Peter knew where they were going, apparently, because he stopped only to look around for a few seconds before aiming for a silvery Audi, glancing sidewards to MJ to make sure she kept up. A large man in a black suit and tie stood next to it, fiddling with his phone.

“Hi, Happy.” 

The man in the black suit looked up. “Hey, kid.” He didn’t sound pleased, but from what MJ could see, he wasn’t truly annoyed. Worried? Perhaps. “What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into this time, huh?”

She saw Peter turn red in the face out of the corner of her eye. With a somewhat strangled voice and completely ignoring Happy’s question, he gestured quickly towards her. “This is MJ - uhm, Michelle. MJ, this is Happy. He’s, uhm, head of asset management?”

“And apparently still glorified driver”, Happy grumbled, but his eyes were evaluating when he met MJ’s stare. “So. Michelle, huh? I’ve heard a lot about you. Apparently you’re terrifying.”

MJ raised an eyebrow and hid the pleased grin that wanted to break out. Her reputation preceded her. “And you’re the guy with all the blackmail material on Peter.”

Peter gave a choked sound.

Happy looked confused.

“The voicemails?” she elaborated. “Churros, kittens, getting stuck on a balcony? I’ve heard some of the stories, but there must be a lot more that Peter hasn't wanted to tell me because they’re too embarrassing. I’ll give you my email address so you can send me the highlights.”

Happy looked disconcerted. “Uhm - why - sure, but why?”

MJ smiled widely, in the way she knew creeped most people out. “Like I said. Blackmail material. And also because it sounds hilarious.”

She snuck a glance at Peter - trying to judge whether she’d gone too far, been  _ too much _ , because she only wanted to freak Happy out, not really freak Peter out - but he actually looked a little amused at Happy’s complete perplexity. 

She kept up both the smile and the eye contact until Stark came around the corner, phone still in hand, and shoo’ed them all in the car with a quick: “That’s sorted, let’s go let’s go let’s go.”

She  _ had _ hoped she would have lightened the mood a little between her and Peter, but she managed to bump her bad hand into the door as she climbed in and couldn’t stop a small hiss of pain, and that immediately wiped the last remnants of a smile off his face until only the stony, resolute mask was back.

Damn it.

She had no energy for a second try.

“Peter’s place is on the way”, she instead informed Happy as they drove off, and her voice sounded empty. “You should drop him off first.”

Peter’s head snapped around from his seat behind Stark. “No - MJ -”

“It makes the most sense”, she insisted. Because it  _ did _ . 

“You’re the one who’s hurt”, Peter protested, and then looked like he immediately wished he hadn’t said anything.

That  _ would  _ have been the smartest course of action. 

“And?” she challenged, one eyebrow raised.

Peter looked away.

They were both silent for the rest of the car ride. 

Happy, it turned out, was a decent driver. Stark was  _ not  _ a decent shot-gun, and kept an almost continuous commentary flow the entire way to Peter’s place. 

MJ would have been frustrated out of her mind, if she hadn’t seen the calculated look Stark sometimes shot in Peter’s direction, before bursting out in another stream of complaints about Happy’s driving, cyclists, city planning, Happy’s driving, other drivers, traffic lights, and Happy’s driving. Happy took the whole thing in stride. Clearly he’d handled Stark in similar situations too many times before. 

Happy pulled over half a block away from Peter’s apartment (“It’s a lot more convenient just to stop here, okay? The kid has legs”) despite Stark’s protests (“What do I even pay you, because apparently it’s too much”), and then they both apparently really, really needed to look at their phones, because they fell silent as soon as Peter turned to MJ.

He looked like he wanted to say something. Apologize, probably, because he still hadn’t, and MJ  _ knew  _ Peter - knew that he really was sorry. But she’d said she didn’t want to talk. So he wouldn’t talk. Not even light things, easy things to smooth things over. Not even just saying that he liked her. Not even  _ see you tomorrow? _ , because that would be to presume too much when he hadn’t even apologized first. Typical Peter.

_ Damn him.  _ And yes, she was well aware that her annoyance was irrational, but that happened occasionally and there wasn’t really much to do about it. 

She wasn’t surprised when he only smiled shakily, and then said: “Bye, Happy.”

“Bye, kid”, the driver said.

Before she could either think better of it or complete her analysis whether it would be the best thing to say right now, she blurted: “Write me when you’re up? I could come to your place.”

His hand froze on the handle. “Uhm.” With something very,  _ very  _ vulnerable in his eyes, he asked: “If you want to?”

“Yeah. Yup.” She nodded at least three times before she could stop herself. “Yeah. Just… I’m probably gonna… sleep for a while. So if I don’t reply it’s most likely that. That I’m sleeping.”

Christ on a stick. She sounded like he used to do when he hadn’t dared confess his crush on her.

Peter searched her face for a while for  _ something _ (regret? anger? something like that), and then gave her the crooked little smile that made the fluttering in her belly go haywire every damn time. “Okay”, he agreed, and climbed out of the car.

“Kid?” Tony had rolled down his window, and Peter turned. “Don’t forget what I said about Lauren, okay?  _ Call _ her.”

“Yeah, yeah okay, I hear you”, Peter mumbled. 

Stark took pity on him. “Okay. Get some sleep, Pete.”

“Thanks for the ride”, Peter only said, ever the politest person MJ had met in her life, and disappeared around the corner with only a short glance in her direction she couldn’t quite interpret.

“Who’s Lauren?” MJ asked, when the car started rolling again. 

Stark shot her a sharp glance. “His therapist. He’s never mentioned her? Every self-respecting superhero has one, these days, or so they tell me.” 

Very conscious about Stark’s attentiveness to her response, she merely said: “Calling your therapist when you’ve fucked up isn’t really reserved for superheroes, you know. But I guess most people don’t break people’s bones without intending to, so maybe you need them more than most.”

That startled a laugh from Stark (and a half-horrified, half-impressed look in the rear-view mirror from Happy Hogan). “Point, kid”, Stark grinned. 

“And he  _ has _ mentioned her”, MJ muttered. She just… hadn’t really considered that 1) this whole mess was something Tony Stark would get dragged into because he was mostly there for the  _ actual _ superhero stuff and not really for teenage drama, so she was a bit off balance from the get-go, or 2) that Tony Stark knew the name of Peter’s therapist, or 3) that this morning was going to end with her in a car with only Tony Stark and his driver for company without the comfortable buffer of Peter’s presence. 

She didn’t like Tony Stark. Her usual tricks to unbalance people didn’t work on him, and that left her unsettled every time. He also had this way of seeing right through her, and while she could appreciate when  _ Peter _ saw through her facades, she didn’t like it when it was a (former) weapon’s magnate billionaire playboy-slash-chauvinist (probably) who did it.

She  _ could _ see he was good for Peter though, so. That was that, she supposed. She’d play nice.

Then she realized they were driving again, and had been for some time. In the right direction.

“How do you know where I live?” she demanded crossly.  _ There went the play nice-resolution _ . 

“You do know who I am, right?” Stark didn’t sound at all apologetic, and it made her  _ furious _ . “I’ve looked into everyone close to Peter. Obviously I know where you live.”

“You watch me when I sleep, too?” MJ snapped. “Delving into creep territory, Stark.”

“I do  _ not _ .” Stark’s voice was sharp. “Believe it or not, I don’t particularly enjoy invading your privacy.”

“Then don’t”, MJ suggested blandly.

“Not an option.”

“An option for most people.”

Stark turned around in his seat and glared at her. “Kid. You’re in the superhero business. You might not have asked for it, but you sure didn’t back out when you realized you were, so here we are. Superheroes occasionally have the bad taste to fight  _ supervillains,  _ if you’ll pardon my slight exaggeration, and that kind of people tend to be kind of crappy with the whole morality thing. Just because Pete has been relatively lucky so far and no one really has targeted you, or Ned, or May, doesn’t mean he hasn’t been threatened with it. Doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen. And for his peace of mind -  _ and mine _ \- some information is necessary for me to have. Like where your dad works. How you get to school. And yeah, which bedroom window is yours. Stuff like that. So that if you’re ever targeted, I will know where to look for you.  _ Capisce? _ ” 

To her mortification, MJ found her throat (finally) burned with tears (of fear? of anger? of guilt? or just because she was  _ so tired _ ?) she  _ refused  _ to let out.

“Fine”, was all she could manage. 

Stark gave her a long look before he nodded, as if something had been decided, and he turned back towards the road again.

Still  _ refusing  _ to cry, MJ asked in a voice much smaller than she wanted (because she  _ had to ask _ ): “And if Peter and I break up?”

Stark didn’t turn, but his eyes met hers in the rear-view mirror. They looked softer than she’d expected. “Well, that’s between the two of you. I’m not going to… shit, I dunno. Preach, or try to convince you to do or not do anything. That’s not my business.”

“Damn right it isn’t”, MJ mumbled.

The lines around Stark’s eyes deepened in a smile. Then he turned serious again. “But whatever you two decide, I’m not going to stop... looking out for you.  _ Stalking you _ , if that’s how you wanna see it, I honestly don’t care, call it whatever you want. Because bad guys don’t generally care about labels, Miss Jones. And all they’re gonna see is that Peter cares about you, because he wears his heart on his sleeve, and that’s going to make you a target whether you’ve broken up or not.”

He let her process that for a second, before adding, in a gentle tone she’d never heard from him before: “I’m really sorry about that, Michelle.”

All the fight left her, and it left her drained and worn. “Yeah, well.” She wiped her eyes with her good hand. 

“And for what it’s worth”, Stark said, still not turning but keeping looking at her through the mirror - as if giving her a little bit of privacy, a little bit of space - “I know Peter’s really sorry about hurting you.”

She couldn’t stop a  _ sound _ from escaping her - a wet scoff, a laugh, a hitched breath. “ _ That _ has been pretty damn obvious the whole time.” 

The silence that fell was thoughtful, more than anything else.

“Take the next left”, MJ said suddenly, leaned her head against the cool window and closed her eyes. “They’re doing some construction work ahead. This way is faster.”

“You heard the boss, Hap.”

“Yes, boss.”

* * *

The doorbell rang. 

Weird.

He’d been up. He’d had time to see the note from May ( _ “Be back at one, you can tell me all about the party then! xoxo”) _ and crumple it in his hand. Had wished May hadn’t had an early morning shift so she’d be here, then felt childish for wishing it. Had grabbed a bowl and some cereal from the cupboard, had eaten it, and cleaned it away again. Done some dishes. Thrown himself over the couch. Hadn’t thought of anything, if he could avoid it. He should have had at least an hour or two before he’d have to think again.

But, then again, apparently not.

Frowning, Peter pulled a t-shirt over his head for decency, decided the sweatpants he was wearing were good enough to be seen in, rubbed a hand over his face to force himself awake, and opened the door a little. 

“What’s up, dork?” MJ squeezed past him and began unlacing her boots with one hand.

“Uhm. Hi?” Peter blinked. Closed the door behind her. 

“Sleep well?” She hung her coat on the hook she usually used.

“Not… really?” It had taken him at least two hours to fall asleep and his circadian rhythm had woken him soon after, deciding it was definitely morning by then.

“Yeah, I hear ya.” And then suddenly she was in the kitchen, accompanied by the familiar sounds of someone making coffee. 

Something twisted in his guts. 

He couldn’t keep up.

He didn’t  _ get it _ .

“Were - uhm, MJ?” Peter called, his voice still raspy from lack of sleep, and went after her. “Weren’t you going to text me? Or, uhm, wasn’t I going to? Text you?”

“This was faster”, MJ said over her shoulder. 

And. Well. It was hard to argue with that. 

She brought the coffee with her to his room, because apparently, that was where they were going, and she drank it standing as she leaned over his desk, picking up school books and papers. Eventually she must have found something interesting, because she grabbed a few of his somewhat worse-for-wear notebooks and sat down on the floor, laying them out before her and keeping the cup of coffee in her hand as she read. Either she was ignoring him, or she didn’t mind his stupefied gaping. Or she found it funny.

Tentatively, Peter sat down on his bed and just… looked at her. Tried to not remember her wide-eyed startle at the sudden pain in her arm. Tried to  _ understand _ , instead.

She kept her plastered hand in her lap, relaxed. As if daring him to comment on it. It was very possible, he realized, that that was exactly what she was doing. 

He scrounged up whatever courage he could find, and asked: “MJ, why are you here? Now? Today?” 

MJ looked up from what looked like his biology homework. “To hang out.”

She managed to make it sound so  _ easy _ .

“Aren’t you going to break up with me?” Peter blurted. Absolutely none of what she’d done so far had indicated that she would, but since that idea was really,  _ really _ hard to consolidate with his absolute certainty from the night before that it was the only possible outcome, he was… confused. Very confused. 

She raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“But  _ why _ ?” His brain caught up with his mouth, and he hastily backtracked: “Not that I want you to! But - I just thought maybe you… should?”

“Why?” MJ looked  _ entirely  _ too calm.

He almost jumped up from his seat, but managed to stop himself last second -  _ shouldn’t move too quickly, shouldn’t be too rash, should be careful, careful careful  _ \- so that he instead made sort of a little jump on the bed. It must have looked ridiculous. “Because! Because I hurt you! I literally broke your arm! He hits you once, he’ll do it again, right?”

“ _ Are _ you going to do it again?” 

Nausea and guilt suddenly swirling in his stomach, he put a hand over his forehead. Rubbed his eyes, pushed back all emotions that weren’t  _ calm _ , weren’t  _ collected _ . “ _ No _ , of  _ course _ I won’t, MJ. God, you - I can’t even - I’m  _ so sorry _ -”

“I know.” When he dared look up, her eyes had softened. “I know, dork.”

Helplessly, he repeated: “I’m  _ so sorry _ , MJ.” 

She put the cup down. Stood up. Moved over, and deliberately sat down next to him. 

He felt frozen. Couldn’t have moved even if he had wanted to, as she slowly, carefully, put her good hand on his chest. “I’m not saying it’s okay”, she said, not taking her eyes off him. “It’s not.”

“I know.”

“Peter, just shut up and listen to me for a sec, okay?” MJ said with a bit of bite in her voice. “Because I get that you need to talk about this, and I do too, but for that to happen I’m gonna need you to snap out of the misery wallowing and  _ stop  _ making me do all the emotional labor here. We’re a team, right?” 

Face heating, he said: “Oh. Yes. Yeah.”

She searched his face for a second, then nodded. “So. It’s not okay. You won’t do it again. You’ll be  _ really careful _ around alcohol, because when you don’t think, you can’t control what your hands are doing, and that occasionally means things are going to break.”

Not quite daring to believe his luck, Peter nodded vigorously. “I can do that.”

“You better.” 

“But…” Not quite believing he was about to actually ask, he said: “...but you forgive me?”

Her fingers twitched against his chest, then went still again. Serene. “Would I be here if I hadn’t?”

“MJ, please.” And if there was something breathless in the way he said it, he didn’t care. 

She understood. He’d known she would. “Yes. I’ve forgiven you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t”, he felt compelled to point out.

She met his gaze levelly as she said: “I know. But I’ve done it anyway. Deal with it.”

And she leaned in to kiss him, and he gasped against her as he kissed her back.

* * *

“I was really stupid”, MJ confessed, moving up closer against his arm around her and shifted so that she was lying more comfortably. “I should just have laughed her off, but I basically accused  _ her  _ of accusing  _ me  _ of lying and I swear I sounded like the epitome of the abused girlfriend.”

Peter, out of the corner of her eye, looked pained. 

“Too soon?” 

A breathless sound - a small burst of laughter, a sob, a sigh. “Yeah. Just a little. Maybe.”

They fell silent for a while. Watched the actors run across the screen, jump off a cliff into the water below. MJ snorted involuntarily at their screams.

“I never wanted you to have to lie for me”, Peter said then, still not looking away from the screen as the actors came up for air and climbed out of the river. “I mean. It especially sucks that you had to do it to a nurse who was just really worried about you.”

MJ found then she felt a little bad for the way she’d snapped at Veronica. 

“But you shouldn’t have to do it to anyone.” His arm tightened a little around her, and she didn’t think he was aware he’d done it. “Not for me.”

With a jolt and an unpleasant aftertaste in her mouth, MJ remembered meeting Tony Stark’s eyes in a mirror and  _ that’s going to make you a target whether you’ve broken up or not _ . “Yeah, well,” she muttered. “Comes with the territory, I guess.”

Peter  _ hmm _ ed. 

“I don’t mind”, she said, and found she meant it. “Having to lie to protect you, I mean. You’re lying about yourself, who you are, to protect me all the time.”

Peter looked torn. “That’s not… really the same thing.”

MJ snuggled closer. “Close enough.”

He must have gotten the hint, because he didn’t argue. 

The movie wasn’t very good, but it was good enough to pretend to watch while they sorted out their thoughts - which was why MJ had suggested it. 

The child actors began fiddling with a jeep.

“MJ?” Peter tried for conversational, and missed it by a mile. “What did I do, yesterday? You became angry, and I… didn’t understand.”

Oh.  _ This  _ part of the conversation.

She shifted. Sighed. “I… It’s not a huge deal, Parker. I had a headache, wanted to go home. And then… you ignored my opinion.” She saw him frown, and elaborated: “When I said you were drunk. You didn’t think you were, but you didn’t say anything, just... smoothed the whole thing over, and I just… I don’t like when people don’t think my opinion matters. I got pissed. I didn’t want to try to explain this while I had a headache and wanted to go home. The end.”

“Oh.” Peter looked like he considered it carefully for a while. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I do think your opinion matters.” 

“I know.”

“And, uhm, turns out you were right. About the drunk part.”

MJ let her smile be heard in her voice. “I know.”

The silence was more relaxed, after that.

MJ even closed her eyes. Let herself enjoy the warmth of his body against hers. His chest moving slightly as he breathed. The sounds of the TV and of the people and cars on the street outside blend together, a soothing, familiar sound of lazy weekends.

Then he suddenly froze, and MJ made a small, involuntary noise of discontent in the back of her throat.

He didn’t offer an explanation, just sighed deeply.

Someone turned a key in the lock. She decided she might have to actually be awake, and looked up.

“I’m home!” May’s voice said from the hallway. “Pete?”

Oh. Of course. She relaxed back against Peter again, who still was stiff as a board.

“We’re in here”, Peter said, voice pitched to carry. “MJ’s here.”

A  _ thump _ of something heavy hitting the floor. “Ooh, that’s great! I’m going to need your advice, while you’re here Michelle, if you don’t - oh my God, what’s happened?”

May, hair still in her messy bun from work and with a horribly mis-matching purple sweater over her baby blue scrubs, stared at MJ.

No, correction - at MJ’s hand.

“Oh.” MJ sat up, blinking. “Crazy high school parties, right?”

“MJ…” Peter said, low in her ear.

She ignored him.

“I’d say!” May came closer, bent over her, looked closer at the plaster. “Is it broken? Are you okay?”

“All taken care of”, MJ said. “Pete took me to the hospital.”

May looked at Peter, and something passed between them that MJ didn’t quite get. 

Demonstratively, MJ leaned back against Peter again. “We’re all good now, though.” Aimed the words for Peter, as much as for May.

After a second, May broke eye contact with Peter and looked back at her again. Smiled kindly. “Okay, that’s - that’s great. I’m glad you’re okay, Michelle. I’m just going to change - you guys want some hot chocolate? You must be exhausted, I know how long the wait is in the ER rooms Friday night.”

“Sure”, MJ said. “Thanks.”

“Thanks, May”, Peter said, and his voice was quiet.

May gave him one last look before she left for her bedroom, and MJ sighed. 

“You want to tell her?”

“Not if you don’t want me to”, Peter said immediately, but she could hear the conflict in his voice.

She leaned back, fixed him with an exasperated glare. “She’s your aunt, Parker, you can do whatever you want. I don’t think she’s going to be weird about it anyway.” May was generally cool that way.

Peter drew a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Honestly, I think the thing she’s going to freak out the most over is that we were drinking.”

MJ smirked. “Phrase it as a mitigating circumstance in the context of a bigger crisis. I mean, it would have been much worse if you’d broken my wrist sober, right?”

Peter laughed sharply. “Right.”

But he relaxed again, and they both turned back towards the TV. MJ realized she must have fallen asleep at one point, because this was clearly nearing the end of the movie - the child actors’ characters being picked up by their parents, or something, when they’d been running for their lives last she’d looked.

She didn’t mind.

“I think I missed some vital plot points”, Peter mumbled in her ear, mimicking her thoughts.

“You call them vital?” 

Peter snorted. 

Now in a pair of slacks and a hoodie, May started moving about the kitchen, and they could see her put three cups of milk in the microwave.

“You want marshmallows?” May called over her shoulder. “I feel like this is a marshmallow day.”

“I want marshmallows!” Peter called back.

“Marshmallows are made out of pig fat, did you kn0w?” MJ said before she could stop herself.

Shit.

May, apparently used to her by now, just replied: “You still want some, though?”

MJ smiled widely. “Love some.”

As the credits rolled on the TV, she put her head on Peter’s shoulder.

Something in her belly relaxed, uncurled and warmed as he put his head on top of hers.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Snarky MJ is the person I wish I was.
> 
> I completely made up “the debacle with Scorpion” based on the post-credits scene of Homecoming, because I wanted something to have forced Peter and Tony to become closer. Maybe I’ll write something about that one day, who knows!
> 
> The mention of Lauren, Peter’s therapist, is a nod to my story Big Secrets, And Other Things To Talk To Your Therapist About. If you haven’t read it and enjoyed this one, I think you might like that too :) (Also, can I say here I was just blown away from your response to that piece?! I was giddy for days! THANK YOU!)
> 
> All jokes and fictional discussions aside, though - I feel I need to address the subject of domestic abuse because of what I did in this story. The principle Peter is talking about - if he (or she, or they) hits you once, they are very likely to do it again - is statistically true. Accidents can absolutely happen, and forgiveness and working though your issues is all well and good and something all people in relationships need to work on. But, if you are in a relationship with someone who hurts you, please be very careful regarding your own safety and get out if you can. You don’t owe someone who hurts you to stay with them - and I’ve tried to let both MJ and Peter be very aware of this fact in this story. I hope this came through, and that I haven’t made anyone think otherwise by writing this. 
> 
> With that said - thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this angst-fest, and if you did, I’m always overjoyed by any kudos or comments you decide to leave! <3 
> 
> \----
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: a lot of talk about domestic abuse. There’s no intentional harming of anyone else from any party in this story, but people still get hurt, in a way which can be interpreted as domestic abuse - and is, by some characters in the story.


End file.
